Lee Kenny has always fancied himself an artist. It took an energy drink to get his creative aspirations off the ground.
Two years ago, Kenny, a house painter from Pasadena, had plenty of work, a great girlfriend and a gratifyingly busy life. But a strange idea possessed him. He wanted to build a flying machine and see if he could get it in the air.
"I had the design finished," says Kenny, who hoped to enter his creation in a mock aviation contest. "It would be shaped like a jet and have removable wings. That way, I could get it on my car. I was ready to drive to San Diego [for the contest] if I had to."
But a better flight of fancy hit his radar screen. He saw a magazine ad about how Red Bull, the energy-drink company, was seeking artists for a nationwide contest.
The work he created, a 2-by-3-foot, scale-model map of the U.S. that took 75 hours and used 31 cans, landed Kenny in his first national art show and won him a place in this year's "Red Bull Art of Can" exhibition, which opens at Union Station in Washington this week.
His entry for this year, a scale replica of an early Wright Brothers' plane, does more than compete with other works from around the country for the top prize, a trip to Switzerland. Whatever the outcome, it has given his dreams some lift.
"My process is to track on three or four things at a time," says Kenny. His second-favorite painter, after van Gogh, is the omni-talented daVinci.
From grade school onward, he could draw. Kenny hauls out a thick album full of still-life sketches dating to the early 1990s: an electric razor, a shaded curl of paper, a push broom, all in exacting close-up.
"I did learn some things in class, but most of what I know in life, I've learned by doing," he says. "There's an awful lot you can teach yourself."
Kenny left school in 10th grade and has taken a run at jobs including menial labor, master carpentry and computer work (he has an associate's degree). He now works as a salesman for Chilltrol, an HVAC company in Severn.
Like van Gogh, who Kenny says "attacked the canvas" in his effort to render forgotten images from childhood, he grew younger by maturing.
"I wish I had the skills I have now when I was a kid," Kenny says. "I'm catching up to how I felt back then."
Vaughan has always been the encouraging type - "Not all of us can be talented like this guy," she says, bounding into Kenny's kitchen to give him a kiss on the forehead before going for a jog - so when she saw the ad in People, he's the first person she thought of.
The idea flooded his mind with ideas, mostly American-themed ones. He saw Red Bull Statues of Liberty, Red Bull Empire State Buildings, Red Bull Washingtons-Crossing-the-Delaware, Red Bull Wright Brothers planes. The images came so thick and fast he forgot about Flugtag (also, coincidentally, a Red Bull-sponsored contest) and started thinking details.
The image that most drew him - a map of the United States - became his subject, a case of the drink his hourglass. Kenny bought 24 cans (plus another six) at BJ's Wholesale Club, draining one Red Bull a day so he'd be ready in about a month.
The end result was good enough to make the final show in Philadelphia, along with 60 other works from around the country. One, a life-sized bull, used 1,000 cans; a full-sized angel used 625. The winner, from a New Jersey contestant, was called "Fueling the Rat Race." It showed the eponymous rodent on a treadmill in a cage, drinking Red Bull from a water dispenser.
This year's work suits Kenny even better than the map. He has always loved the notion of flight, and he has seen the original Wright brothers' planes at the Smithsonian more times than he can count.
Like any visionary, he spliced familiar techniques with improvisation. He glued dirt to a square of plywood to floor the scene, then built the plane to scale, using drafting equipment to translate every dimension into inches. Each wing was two flattened cans side-by-side (total wingspan: 8 inches); lengths of coat hanger became the struts between lower and upper.
Truth be told, he doesn't care too much where things go from there. Kenny feels he has as good a chance as any among the contestants, but mostly he's looking forward to Thursday's opening and the 10-day show - and in general hoping people just see and enjoy his art.
If you go
The 56 final entrants for the Red Bull Art of Can competition will be on display in the main lobby at Union Station in Washington from Thursday to Oct. 19. Admission is free.
